Tag Archives: backseat driver

Backseat Driver Solution

Backseat Driver Solution

I have, on occasion — okay, actually 90 percent of the time — when I am a passenger in someone’s car, been accused of being a backseat driver. Even when taking Uber or Lyft, I cheerily inform my ‘driver’ that I can give him the directions, and that my shortcuts are definitely faster than anything Google Maps might be telling him. Who needs WAZE when you are with me, I know the best way! After all, I know my ‘hood; I just hate driving.

Well, let me clarify. It’s not that I hate driving—except on the Freeways, that terrifies me—it’s just that I have what is called ‘night blindness’ and, once dusk hits, my ability to perceive distance diminishes greatly. I have no sense of depth or distance, and can’t even find things in my own handbag if it is lined in black.

We discovered I had night blindness when I was learning how to drive. One night, when I was practicing my driving, I pulled out on the highway in Canada right in front of a semi-truck thinking that he was a good half-mile away. This move almost got my brother, my father and me killed. My mother also has night blindness and my parents reasoned I inherited this from my mom.

What the hell, just my luck! My gorgeous mother— who looks like a cross between Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins—suffers from night blindness to the point that my father never let her drive past 5 pm. Great, I inherited night blindness from my mom, and dyslexia from my dad. My sister, on the other hand, inherited my mom’s movie star good looks and her artistic talents. Sometimes the universe just isn’t fair. But it is what it is, and believe me… you don’t want to drive with me at night. Hell, I don’t want to drive with me at night.

But my unintentional bossy “I know where I am going” backseat driver personality can be really annoying to the person who is actually driving. But friends, I recently have come up with a solution to my problem! Soon, there will be a cure for my backseat driver personality – an actual backseat driver cure that will stop my mouth from feeling this uncontrollable need to ‘direction-direct’.

What is my backseat driver cure??

You see, some genius has come up with this, well, what looks to be fucking-scary-upon-first-glance invention called… a self-driving car. Yep, within two years the brainiacs at Google estimate that self-driving cars will be able to self-navigate and co-exist compatibly with all the human driven vehicles on the road.

So, in two years I won’t have to worry about being a backseat driver, I will be able to tell my robot-car to go anywhere I want it to go, and it will have to do exactly as I ask. Robot-car won’t have feelings or get irritated from my backseat driver directions. In fact, Robot-car will automatically respond to my requests without any hesitation or consternation. I will be the boss of him and he will do as I ask, and even though it still sounds kind of fucking-freaky-as-shit to me… I am researching now to put my name on a waiting list for a self-driving car.

So, while I wait for technology to perfect itself, at least all of those friends, Uber and Lyft drivers out there who ever so patiently placate my backseat driver mouth, just know… that a cure, a solution, a resolution is coming soon to alleviate my condition.

So…Soon to freeways near you, a robot-car driven by a hands-free Janell, cheerily spewing her backseat driver directions as she sips her Chardonnay, her high heels ready to disembark at whatever location she has directed her car to go! And it that isn’t a scary enough picture…. Technology?!?!